


Payment Plan

by minkmix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abduction, Child Abuse, Gen, Psychological Torture, Torture, Wee!chesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: When John fails to pay a debt a dangerous man comes after his children...(Outside POV which switches in the epilogues.)





	1. Payment Plan

**Author's Note:**

> John Fracks up. The kids pay.

He kind of liked to think of himself as a mobile pawn shop.

He didn't have a storefront so much as he had his name and reputation that drew people to him that needed to give up things they owned in exchange for cash. Anything, as they say, went. Electronics was a big one. The chronic gamblers sometimes gave up titles to their cars. The strung out gave you just about everything that wasn't buried with their dear departed grandmother.

A few times he thought he might have gotten a few pieces of antique bling that just might have been. If he thought he could unload it after the grace period was over he'd take just about anything. He'd take it and hand some desperate soul about less than half of what it was worth no problem.

It was simple economics.

Unfortunately, he broke his own rules sometimes with the guys that had proven to be more than consistent with their turn around. A steady income off a few of his best makers made him a little bit sloppy these days. But sometimes you had to invest your money to get more money back. Like with John. He didn't know his last name and didn't want to but John had been good for business. Specifically, the gun business. He had no idea where the freak got all his pieces but if he had actually owned shelves, they would have been flying right off of them. At least they had been.

After he had given old John a sizable loan to really get things going, the guy had up and not only missed his deadline to return it, but he heard through his grapevine that the bastard was even planning on skipping town. As he drove he idly hit the car's tuner until he found a decent radio station. It seemed like John could get a little sloppy too. It wasn't but two days later that he found out through a friend of a friend just exactly where John had been staying. He was a fair man. He'd just take something of comparable value of which he was owed or John would get to see the exciting end of one of those rifles he liked to deal with so much. It didn't have to be raw cash. In fact, he was in the market for just about anything to the tune of five grand. It was a pity really that when he pulled up into the parking lot that that sweet ride of a Chevy wasn't there. He wouldn't have minded taking that and selling it piece by piece. Oh well, he might as well just let himself in and see if there wasn't anything else.

He was a fair man and he was a large man. Around and up and down. It didn't take a whole lot to get the flimsy motel door open. At first he thought he had maybe gotten a completely different and very wrong room. This string of 'pay by the hour' motels usually housed at best, patrons who could pay for at least an evening. They were crap hole run down roach farms that junkies used to get high in and people like John used to disappear.

It was no place he'd ever expect to find a kid.

The boy looked at least as old if not older than his sister's fourteen year old brat. Scruffy looking. Ripped up jeans, scuffed up sneakers and an AC/DC T shirt. The kid was looking up at him in alarm but mostly something else. Blinking down at the boy, he recognized the look as being almost the same as old John's was when he was watching him to count out his money. Or open the boxes of firearms. Or just about anything. It was some clinical stark appraisal and subtle wariness that lay somewhere outside of real fear.

This kid belonged to John?

He glanced over at the packed duffel bags that were all set and ready to go. The simmer of his annoyance roiled again at the clear evidence that his money was just about to jump state lines without him.

"Daddy not home huh?" He said conversationally while taking the nearest bag and dumping its contents on the floor. Nothing here but laundry.

As he always said, he was a fair man. He'd just take what he was due. And if he wasn't offered it, he could arrange for the proper motivation that would make a person do so. It never took him very long to make up his mind. He attributed it to his keen business sense. So there was nothing here to take? Just like the more fancy professionals of his ilk, he'd just think outside of the box. Maybe his business partner would be more accommodating if he had some more convincing collateral.

"I'm a good friend of your Dad's." He said with a friendly grin.

The boy didn't smile back.

"Why don't you come along with me? We can go get some ice crea-- jesus!"

He was down on one knee on the floor before he even knew what hit him. The sharp hard kick to his kneecap making his leg go numb and limp at the same time. Another jab whipped out of no where right across his jaw and almost made him fall backwards. A little dizzy he felt at his chin, looking up just in time to see the kid getting ready to do it one more time. With a growl and lunge that was stronger than the kid was probably expecting from a man of his girth, he pulled himself up and grabbed the boy by the arm in mid swing. Another agonizing kick to his other knee made him stumble but he didn't go down this time.

A clicking sound made him pause.

He turned to see the barrel of a rifle pointed right at him. Another one? The skinny little kid holding the weapon looked like he was about old enough to still be wearing a diaper. Maybe. Anyone who wasn't even thinking about shaving yet looked almost the same to him.

"What the--"

The shot went off, exploding into the plaster wall next to his head.

"Fuckin' Christ--!"

Both kids were on the floor.

The older one had tossed himself out of the shot blast's path and knocked himself senseless against a table edge. The littler one had most likely tipped backwards from the strong recoil. In fact, he was pretty sure if the short bastard hadn't been knocked over, the shot would have taken the top of his goddamn head off. Getting his breathing back in control he quickly decided what to do. He sure as fuck wasn't taking both of these hell's minions with him and the little one might not know how to use a toilet. There was no way he was dealing with that.

Kicking away the gun, he picked up the now snarling and wildly punching younger child and unceremoniously threw him into a nearby closet. Ignoring the frantic pound of fists on the other side, he slid a chair under the door knob and brushed off his hands. With one hand wadded into the front of the T shirt, he hauled the dazed older boy to his unsteady feet. Not having a whole lot of interest in punching anyone less than half his size in the face, he was more than glad that the table had done the work for him.

"Let's try this again huh?"

He shouldered the boy easily and walked out the open door. He noticed his new found limp in both legs thanks to the kicks he'd received. It wasn't every day that he got his ass almost handed to him by two rug rats that were both younger than his Buick. He'd have liked to hang around for dear Dad to show back up but he had to get going while the getting was good. Even a dump like this would have cops crawling all over it with gun fire reported. He shook his head.

Figures these kids were as fucking weird as their old man.

Looking around at the empty parking lot a few times before he unlocked his trunk, he thought that if maybe he should have thought about his plan a little more through. He supposed this would be considered kidnapping even if the kid was some nobody that belonged to an even bigger nobody. But it didn't really seem like much of a crime.

It wasn't like this kid was important or really mattered. Kids that mattered weren't holed up in some jizz soaked rat trap with loaded weapons. The kind of child that would invoke telethons and news specials were the ones that went to school and got tucked in at night. No one was going to miss this scrappy kid. Hell, maybe not even weird old John.

If John didn't reach out and ended up taking off anyway, he'd figure out something else to do with his new acquisition. It wouldn't be the first time his business traded in the type of product that didn't sit in a box.

The boy started to stir when his back hit the uneven jumble of jumper cables and other various junk that littered the trunk. His eyes focused and unfocused when his legs were roughly rearranged so he'd fit. When he quickly realized what was happening he started really freaking out. But his limbs were less organized in their violence, his protests under the oil rag held pressed over his face were incoherent. Holding the kid down, he slammed the lid down as fast as possible. Kind of like he'd seen those park rangers on TV do with rabid raccoons into those metal cages.

Even if the boy wasn't anything worth what John owed, he would just have to make do with what he had and cut his losses. With another shrug to himself as he got behind the wheel he figured he'd play it and just see what happened.

As with most business choices, there was always just a little bit of a gamble.

 

 

 

When he got home he was pretty hungry.

He wandered his kitchen cabinets until he found the makings of a sandwich. There was even some of that left over entenmann's cake that he liked. The milk had turned a little but he drank it anyway.

A brief examination in his bathroom mirror showed a nice bruise on his cheek from where he'd been struck. His thinning hair was filled with white bits and pieces of drywall that had rained down with the shot gun shell's impact. His aching knees had purplish marks on them both. The pocket of his jacket had been regretfully ripped. All in all, a bit more damage than he had expected or planned for. Changing his clothes he relaxed in front of the television for a while. The news did nothing to improve his already declined mood. He tempered it with a cold beer and before he knew it he had dozed off.

He woke up when the TV station flipped off into that startling off air tone, the stuttering screen filled with that primary colored default. With a yawn and a stretch he almost started to head up to the comfort of his bed when he suddenly remembered what he'd left to do for later. The night had gotten cold and brisk.

He shivered even in his heavy shirt and sweater as he picked up the newspaper and pulled a mass of envelopes out from the metal lock box that was right outside his door. Living urban was nice in that you didn't have to go very far to find your mail. Living in this part of the city was also nice because most people were too scared to walk around in it let alone explore it. The cops didn't even come down here very often unless they really had too. All of these factors also made property, even of an entire building and the next door adjoining lot, very affordable. With another yawn he shuffled back inside his garage. He made sure the electric retractable door was firmly down and locked.

"Sure got chilly huh?" He said to the parked car's rear end. The kid had only been wearing a thin T shirt if he remembered correctly.

There was no response.

Wondering what exactly would happen next, and mostly hoping it didn't involve a lot of begging or tears, he slid his key into the trunk lock.

"Okay buddy, let's do this nice and--AH!"

The trunk had barely been opened less that 6 inches before a fist shot out and rammed him in the balls.

He felt the cool smooth concrete under his cheek before he realized he had hit it, his hands clutching himself between his legs, the thick nauseating wave of pain flooding up through his belly and into the back of his throat. There was the feel of a foot using him as a spring board before he saw the kid had used him as a step up onto a pile of boxes along the wall.

"Don't-Don't bother, the door is locked--"

The narrow window that sat just above the stack of boxes slipped up and the boy was gone.

"God fucking damn it." He muttered.

 

 

It took him a while to collect himself enough to follow the kid outside. He didn't put it past the little freak to have somehow gotten under, over, or through the chain link mounted with wire that surrounded his south side little piece of paradise. It had been all put up to keep people out, not necessarily in but at the moment he wasn't going to argue the logistics.

"Kid?" He called out. "Hey! Weird kid? You out here?"

The cement yard was empty except for the few cars on blocks that would be soon quietly stripped for wholesale.

"There's a real mean dog out here ya know?" He lied. Well, there had been but that stupid bastard had accidentally hung itself on said chain link fence last month while trying to get at some stray cat.

He paused when he heard a shuffling sound followed by a small stifled whimper.

For some reason it hadn't occurred to him to check under the window the boy had made his grand escape through. There was a great deal of distance between the garage window and the concrete below it. Looked like it was a little too great. Crouching down next to the boy, he watched him try to move away until his back was pressed against the brick wall. The kid was clutching his ankle.

"Did you get an owie?'

He laughed a little as a fist swung out at him again but he leaned back easily out of its passage.

"Why don't we just make this a whole lot easier on all of us okay?" He gave his best reassuring smile.

It made him a little happy to see that fucking determined expression fade out of the kid's eyes when he saw the roll of duct tape. It had been brought along just in case the jail break hadn't quite worked. In fact, it made him down right pleased that the sound of the tape ripping into strips brought a brand new look into those wide green eyes.

It looked a lot like fear.

 

 

 

He had to carry him back inside.

The weight of the body was tense on his shoulder, wrists working and wrapped in half a roll of shiny silver tape. Sliding him down back onto his feet, he felt a little badly when he forgot that the boy had fucked up his ankle. Landing hard on it, the kid cried out and crumpled to the floor.

With a grab under the elbow and another on the back of the jeans, he pulled him back up and settled him down into his most favorite reclining chair. The rest of the tape was used up to secure his legs in place on either side of the tilt up foot rest. He didn't want to, but an open handed strike across the face made the kicking stop. Pretty hard kicks too, fucked up ankle or not. Admiring his work, he suddenly hoped this wasn't just when the kid would announce he had to use the bathroom. He pulled the wrapped wrists up and used a bungee cord to hook them up back over the head rest. With a kick of his foot, he jerked the recliner into its farthest back position. It looked almost down right comfy.

For the first time since they had met, the kid said something.

"W-Where's my brother?"

That made him smile to hear how small that voice sounded. Brother? That must be the little ankle biter that had tried to blow his brains out. That gun toting bastard was still back in that shitty motel room and hopefully wailing alone in the dark.

"Well," He said as he looked around for a blanket to toss on him. "If there is a God, and I'm pretty sure there is, than he's wetting himself in a closet."

The kid started to look around worriedly. He was about to tell the boy that he didn't have to bother worrying because the snot nosed kid brother of his wasn't here with him ... but instead, he stopped and reconsidered.

"Now, if you play nice?" He told him in the reasonable tone of voice he used when he had someone right where he wanted them in all senses of the term. "Maybe, just maybe if yer good, I'll keep him nice and safe just where he is."

That look was back. The flicker of fear replaced with that goddamn steady look. He sighed. Maybe he'd played the tactic the wrong way.

"Sam!" The boy suddenly called out, legs and arms straining. "SAMMY! I'm here! I'M RIGHT HERE--"

He could feel it. No matter how gracious he was to people, they always pushed him until he started to lose his patience.

"Now, when I said play nice, that also meant no yelling."

Chest heaving, the boy stared up hard over the hand clamped over his mouth.

"See that? That's much better. We can all just get along--AH!"

The fucker bit him.

"You know what I find really funny?" He grumbled as he found a dish rag and ripped a strip off of it.

The kid tossed his head from side to side as the rolled cloth was forced between his teeth.

"Your Daddy has my number but my phone hasn't even rung yet."

The boy hissed as the gag was tied and knotted tightly, pulling probably very uncomfortably at the corners of his mouth.

"Now why do you think that is exactly?"

He took the thick knitted blanket his mother gave him for Christmas and draped it over the kid, up over his face and head, letting it hang down to his knees. That should keep him nice and happy until morning. He was reminded of how he thought that this boy probably had never been tucked in or cared for like some normal kid would. It was almost like he was doing the miserable little loser a favor.

"Maybe you aren't even his."

He sighed with the possibility. Maybe this kid was less than a nobody. Maybe that John just had a thing for young boys. Disgusted with the thought, he shook it off to concentrate on more pleasant things.

Like his waiting warm bed.

"Well," he yawned. "I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. I'm going to hit the sack."

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and considered the writhing angry form under the blanket.

"We'll give a few friends of mine a call tomorrow."

The boy stopped his struggles at the sound of those words.

"We'll find out just what exactly you're worth."

to be continued...


	2. part 2

It took several phones calls in a round about way to find that what he had suspected had happened, indeed had.

The owner and operator of the charming little bed and breakfast at the edge of town had informed his informant that the bastard of the hour had taken off sometime during the night. Hadn't bothered to even close the goddamn motel door behind him or even settle the bill which turned out to be all charged on a bum credit card. Tapping his cell phone on the table he came to a few conclusions.

No one was on their way here because well, no one knew where preciously here was. His was a mobile business. It wasn't very savvy to let every desperate broke reject that came looking for your services to know where you kept it all. But his phone lines were always open. 24 hour operator assistance for your every need. A roll through his messages and he didn't see the name that had been on his mind since his pocket felt a whole five large lighter.

"So long Johnny." He said to himself. "I guess it was a pleasure to have done business with you."

A few more calls that consisted of nothing but his phone connecting and leaving a call back and he let his network start working for him. It was good that he had gotten such a sound night's sleep. It was important to start these things early and let the day play them out to their best conclusion.

If you caught all the right players at all the right times you could be over and done with within a mere 24 hours. He would like that. Baby sitting had never held much appeal. Children had never made much sense to him. Even when he had once been one he had never gotten much enjoyment out of their company. Although, he did relate to the natural sense of self entitlement. For some reason adults always tried to steer young minds away from the simple natural tendency to want things the way they wanted them.

Walking down the stairs, he thought about how most people where nothing but the sum of their own shams. That sense of need never went away. It just got kept buried deep down. It was sad to see grown men use their deserved outrage on the petty. An overcharge on a grocery receipt. An overbooked flight. Getting cut off in traffic. He had never lost sight of what he really deserved. He knew what warranted true anger.

While he waited for his toaster to ding he looked thoughtfully through the ample box of medication he kept in his pantry closet. Shaking an amber plastic bottle, he was happy to hear it was more than half way full.

Everything in his tidy living room was as he left it the night before.

Almost.

The kid had managed to work one leg free out of the tape, and had half way accomplished getting out from under the heavy blanket. It was rather warm in here. With the gag maybe it had been a little difficult to breathe. He was awake. It was plain to see his body tense up at the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Good morning." Came the affable greeting as he pulled away the thick knitted quilt.

In the sudden bright light, the kid blinked up rapidly at him, the front of his T-shirt soaked in a V of sweat, his cheeks flushed red but the rest of his skin pale. Maybe he should have given the guy some water before he had gone to bed last night. He had been so tired that the idea hadn't even crossed his mind.

Walking behind him, it was a simple thing to unhook the bungee so he could lower his arms. The kid quickly did so, but much too fast. Cramped in place for so many hours, he groaned behind the dish rag as he tried to stiffly move them. With shaking hands, he immediately began pulling at the cloth in his mouth. It didn't take long to realize it was knotted too tightly and unreachable behind his head.

"Are we going to start yelling again?"

The kid paused in his fumbling when he saw the open blades of the scissors.

"Because yelling gives me a headache." He explained.

The kid slowly shook his head.

One clean snip and the cloth fell away. The boy gasped as it was pulled free, the corners of his mouth red and slightly bruised.

"Thirsty?"

He could see the turmoil in the kid's eyes. Obviously, the need for water probably superseded the desire for freedom at this point. Hell, if he woke up in the middle of the night even slightly parched he felt like almost dying himself.

"I'll be right back."

Walking into his kitchen, he was happy to see the browned bread steaming and ready. He opened a brand new jar of raspberry jam to eat on his toast and poured himself some coffee. There was a small portable radio he turned on to listen to the news line while he reexamined the brown plastic bottle he'd found earlier.

Between bites of breakfast, he shook out a hand full of pills. Using his coffee spoon he carefully crushed three of the white tablets before reconsidering and crushing three more. It was excessive but it was better to be safe than sorry. Besides at the end of the day and if all went well, the kid wouldn't be his problem to deal with anyway. Almost on cue, his cell phone chimed. Checking the ID, he smiled. This was even better than he'd hoped. This particular freelancer always found the suburbanites that seemed to want to pay just about any sum you asked for as long as you didn't ask them too many questions. That was fine with him. He honestly felt much better off not knowing. Flipping open his phone he listened carefully to the man on the other end.

It never ceased to amaze him how quickly and easily it was to unload the boys. Logic would dictate that the girls would be more marketable but it really wasn't the case. Especially white boys. He had made sure to indicate that this was no ordinary street find which was most likely why he had such a quick bite on the hook.

It was just one of those things. Girls or boys, if it didn't speak Spanish than the price tag always went way up. That had always puzzled him too. What was the difference exactly? He was fairly certain that these buyers weren't looking for something to debate politics with. His man on the line quickly negotiated the finder fee and text messaged over the contact number. The number dialed in a series of pleasing sounds and rang four times before it was picked up.

Now it was his turn to go to work.

"Hello, I was told you're interested in a used car?"

The voice on the other end sounded older. They usually were. They asked a few questions. He answered them.

It's about 14 years old but it runs fine.

Green paint job.

Stolen but unreported. It will never be missed.

While the man on the other end began to hesitantly ask about the embarrassing business of the price, he tapped the crushed white powder into a red coffee mug of cold water. He stirred it as he waited for the man to stop explaining that he had 'never done anything like this before' and would deeply appreciate the 'utmost discretion'.

There was a silence after the amount was declared.

Honestly, he thought he had even overstepped his very own set of business ethics with the outrageous monetary request. After a few tense moments, the gentleman on the line agreed. Now, when exactly would he be able to come and get that car? He explained that no clients ever came directly to his establishment. But not to worry, it was just fine, he knew a place that they could meet. It was only thirty minutes outside of the city and very private.

Would 9PM that night be okay?

Excellent.

Cash only please.

He snapped his phone back shut with a content sigh.

 

 

With some morning cartoons on in the background to make his guest feel at ease, he placed the mug in the kid's bound hands. The boy wasn't stupid. He was looking down at it with about as much trust in his eyes that he had for anything else around him.

"I-I want to see my brother." Dry and ragged, the soft voice was hoarse and unused.

That brother again. He had completely forgotten about that.

"He's not here."

"Wha-" The kid's eyes widened and his hands started to shake again. "What you do with 'im? Where--"

"Would you like to go see him?"

The kid nodded quickly, the steady hard look in his eyes slipping a little with his hope.

"Drink it." He told him.

The boy looked down into the mug again.

"If you don't, then I can assure you, you're not going anywhere anytime soon." He sighed. That he meant. The last thing he needed was to be pulled over with some screaming kid in his trunk.

Seeing the promise of those words in his eyes, the kid slowly lifted the mug to his lips. It only took a few moments of the cold water on his tongue to make his misgivings almost vanish, and soon the entire contents was gulped down breathlessly.

"Good." He took the mug back and smiled. "That wasn't so bad was it?"

The kid's green eyes suddenly got bright and wet.

"Do you want some more?"

He reluctantly and miserably shook his head no.

Although he enjoyed the isolation of his building, the city public tap water was horrible. Pouring from the tall plastic bottle that sat on the table, he refilled the mug anyway and handed it back. He had done it three times before the kid was finished. Watching the last mug of it go, he used the scissors to cut the tape that was left wrapped around the boy's legs.

"I'm sure you have to use the bathroom."

The gaze watching him was already starting to slip, eye lids getting heavy as the tape around his wrists was neatly clipped away as well. He got him to his feet. Swaying, the kid stumbled up against him. When he saw that the boy could put some weight on that ankle he knew the pills were more than working. He half lead him, half dragged him down the hall to an open door.

The kid pushed weakly away from him and staggered to the sink to support himself. Catching the sight of his face in the mirror, he stared for a moment. The hit on the table the night before had left the fine line of a gash just above one eye. And the cost for kicking around had darkened one side of his face into blues and purples.

"There's no window and no lock." He said as he shut the door to offer some privacy.

About to go make himself another cup of coffee, he paused and leaned back close to the door.

"You have about five minutes before you won't even be able to remember your own name." He added. "So, I'd hurry if I were you."

As he walked away he heard the tap twist on and the hiss of the water in the sink. He heard something else under it too and was pretty surprised it took this long for it to happen. At least the kid had enough decency to crack whatever tears he needed in the bathroom where no one had to see it. It was those kinds of things that a man like him really appreciated.

Especially when he had so much work left to do before 9PM.

to be continued...


	3. the end, or is it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are three more to go. Sam Pov, Dean's Pov, and hold on to your sauce....Johns. Oh an a Jim. <3

The construction lot had been abandoned for almost five years.

The contractors that had started it had gone bankrupt not even a month after pouring down the foundations. All that was left was some unsalvageable rotted lumber and some weed choked sections of sewer piping in the middle of a forest. They lay around like gigantic toy blocks, stacked and scattered in the wide yellow beam of his headlights. As soon as he saw the client he knew the man was pretty much like all the others he'd ever seen. They were always middle aged. Always middle class Caucasian and always nervous.

Medium height. Moderate car. Beige trousers. Button down shirts.

Everything about them was about as average as it got. He didn't often wonder what happened to these purchases after the charm wore off or most likely, when these men realized they couldn't keep a secret pet like that in whatever hidey hole they had devised forever. Maybe it never even got that far. One night and it was done and over with. Expensive. But easily disposal didn't always come cheap. Not in the land of plenty. If you wanted cheap you had to fly half around the world to some Asian shit hole and take your chances.

The man was waiting right where he'd asked him to. Leaving his engine running and his lights on, he got out of his car and approached him with a small nod. He saw the guy was a little older than middle age when he got closer. And not all that big. Graying hair with a gentle face he wasn't expecting. Briefly he wondered if the guy could handle the violent child he was about to pay a lot of money for. But that wasn't really his problem.

He was handed a brown paper bag. Shining down his flashlight into it he saw what looked like the amount he'd asked for. He'd count it when he was out of here. Satisfied, he rolled the bag up and met the confused eyes of the man that was impatiently waiting.

"Leave your cell phone on." He instructed him. "When I make sure it's all here you'll get an address where you'll find your boy all packed and ready to go."

The man was clearly unpleased with that news.

"How do I know you won't just take off with my money?"

"You don't."

"But I came all this way--"

"Talk to you soon."

He turned back to his car. It was always done this way, at least when these exchanges were on his terms. It avoided all sorts of perils of the maybe cops, buyers remorse or the usual unpleasantness facing the seller in any commercial venue. He's too old. He's too young. He's not what I expected.

Once again, after cash changed hands. Not his problem. There was no such thing as a return policy in the skin trade. Sliding in behind the wheel he put the bag of cash beside him and watched the older man in the glare of his high beams get back into his ride. Maybe he would just take off with the cash and let this guy flounder in silence back in his suburbs. What could the guy do about it? Call the cops? Come after him himself? It made him laugh a little bit. Maybe he would do just that. Hell, he could sell the kid all week if he just did some time stamped web cam work to prove he even had him...

He froze.

A feel of firm cold metal nudged up against the base of his skull. He raised his hands slowly up off of the steering wheel. A voice was soft and low in his ear.

"Nice night ain't it?"

"Good to see you again John."

 

 

 

It didn't take long to put two and two together and figure out that this 'buyer' was some friend of John's.

A religious man too. He had caught the hint of the collar in their earlier exchange but had just cast it off to the typical clientele that liked to indulge in things that God liked men to burn for. All that hidden self entitlement and all. The righteous were usually the worst about keeping it under wraps. Didn't seem like the holy man had any compunctions on holding a cocked shot gun up against a fellow man's chest either. But all in all he was surprised to see John again. Quite a lot of trouble to go through for a pain in the ass kid.

John was searching the car.

He cleared his throat when his meticulous oil change records were thoughtlessly tossed into the mud. "I guess you're not here to pay me."

"You got paid well enough," The man mumbled in distraction. "Not my fault you wanted a 100% increase in your interest over night."

"It was an executive dilemma. But rules are rules--"

"Then you shouldn't go breakin' your own." John growled as he went through and examined the contents of the glove compartment. It was all tossed aside in frustration.

"You could have just finished up this little exchange." He said with a little disappointment. "This could have all been over already."

"And never see you again?" John said over his shoulder. "Nah, I don't think so."

He had already dismantled the back seat of the Buick and was now tearing up the back of its trunk, flipping out the fiberboard and tossing the spare tire out into the brittle yellow grass. He paused when he spotted something. Slowly, he leant down and pulled it out. It was cardboard ring with a few left over layers of duct tape on it.

The preacher man with the rifle shifted in place and watched as John carefully gripped it before throwing it down.

"Okay, times up." John had his gun back in his hand. "Where is he?"

Adult petty rage again.

"That is a very good question."

John looked back at him evenly.

"He could be right out here in these woods and hoping you'll see him. Or he could be buried in my back yard in a box waiting in the dark to suffocate. Maybe he's down in a basement sealed up behind some drywall?"

"Where's my boy?" He asked again in a low terrible voice.

"Wouldn't you say the more important question right now is, is how long can he be where I left him and stay alive?"

John's stare hardened as he raised his gun.

His older friend hastily stepped up beside him. "Don't..."

"Be quiet Jim."

"Look, let's just cut our losses?" He glanced at his watch. This was taking up way too much of his time. "I'll show you where the kid is and then we can just all go on our separate ways."

"Come on John?" The other older man was pushing the raised weapon down, his tone low and painfully reasonable. "We'll never find him if we go looking on our own."

"And John and I will be going alone thanks." He said pointedly to the clergy man.

The gray haired gentleman began to protest but John held up his hand to silence him.

"Fine." He said. "We'll do it your way."

"I thought you might."

John closed the distance between them until they were almost eye to eye.

"If there's even a scratch on him--"

"There's a little more than that." He said in mild offense at the deviant implications behind the threat. "Actually, if he had been more accommodating he'd be in the same shape he was when you last saw--"

The snap of the pistol across his face was white hot, sending him down into the grass along with the debris of his disassembled trunk.

"Wonder where he gets it from." He added dryly as he gingerly touched the blood on his lip.

John waved his gun towards his parked Chevy.

"Get up."

 

 

 

It took almost an hour to get there.

To his embarrassment he had to ask they back track almost three times. Having just started to use the area for his purposes he wasn't entirely familiar with it just yet. Occasionally correcting a wrong turn, they moved through the dark back streets that ran through the sprawl of the industrial park that sat next to the glittering field of the airport.

After the last left that should have been a right, John had grabbed him by the back of the neck and had slammed his forehead into the dash of his fancy Chevy so hard that he saw stars.

"I-I'm not a young man anymore John, you know how the old memory goes..."

The metal barrel of the gun slid down his belly and down snugly into his crotch.

"If we aren't there in the next five minutes I'm going to--"

"There it is." He breathed in relief. He didn't really doubt old John at all. "That's the one, right there."

It didn't look any different from any of the other single story structures around it. Rows of roll up corrugated steel truck doors. Loading ramps and dumpsters. Empty and unlit. Stepping out of the car he glanced around him, convinced for a moment he saw something behind him in the shadows of the car. Before he could take a better look, John was already shoving him forward.

"Unlock it."

The door clanked open and the musty smell of disuse was thick inside. The space was stripped of all its equipment, leaving old oil stains on the floors and a few tipped over cardboard boxes. A broke down soda machine sat unplugged and strangely alone in the center of the room. There was one windowed type office like room in the far back corner.

"Back there."

John shoved swiftly past him towards it.

"Dean!" He called out. "Dean you in here!"

He followed out of curiosity. And also for his own pistol that he kept in the same room. He had a strong feeling he'd be needing it shortly. John clicked on the single light bulb that the dusty office had hanging from the ceiling. Besides a set of shelves and an old desk pushed up in the corner, there was nothing else to be seen.

"You son of a bitch--"

"Now now, don't get upset, look right over there."

John looked over at a closed closet door.

In three hard strides he had reached it and swung it open.

A few rusted hangers hung askew, and there were a couple sagging boxes labeled 'Invoice' up on the upper shelf. The floor was littered with newspapers and an old scuffed large sports duffel pushed back into the corner.

John looked down at the bag and then back around the empty room with confused incomprehension. "What-Where is he?!"

He nodded down at the bag with a small shrug.

"You don't know much about customer service John."

John blinked down at the bag.

"You always leave your purchases wrapped. It helps when your client can stop at a traffic light and not have to wonder what the new toy is going to do. I admit though, it was a tight fit."

"Dean?"

John got down onto his knees and crawled into the closed space. Hesitantly touching the thick canvas bag he made a small horrified sound upon undoubtedly feeling the warmth of a body inside.

"Dean!" Pulling the duffel out, it rolled heavy and limp out onto the linoleum floor. "Jesus."

John frantically searched for the zipper and quickly found the sturdy padlock that had been put into place. Yanking on it twice he swung around. "Gimme the key!"

He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and made a show of looking for one. "Seemed to have misplaced it."

Good old Dad already had a bowie knife out, carefully slipping it into the seam and yanking it with difficulty, ripping it through the cloth.

"See you around John."

With an apologetic grin, and since all attention was duly occupied, he decided it was time to leave. With a small wave, he turned to the desk in the corner to retrieve the small hand gun he kept stashed just in case of times like this one--

But they weren't quite alone as he thought they were. It was that kid. The other one.

That little brother was standing right behind him.

"I thought I saw someone outside." He smiled. "Hasn't anyone ever told your family it's not nice to hide in back seats?"

About to punt him aside like he had the last time he suddenly halted in his tracks. He didn't even see the taser coils until the contact barbs hooked into his chest, the voltage flooding through him like fire and making his heart seize, skip and stutter. Gasping, he fell down onto his knees, the tiles under his pale hands going in and out of focus.

Distantly he heard the zipper of the duffel ripped apart.

"Dean? Hey, can you hear me?"

There was a harsh wheeze as the kid found consciousness and fresh air, followed by a whimper of panic and a sudden desperate struggle.

"It's ok now, you're fine Dean. Look at me? It's me, see? It's me..."

The sound of thrashing stopped. More gasping as the tape that was wrapped around his mouth was pulled free. The rapid weak pant of exhaustion and wretched coughing as oxygen finally flowed unhindered into smothered lungs.

"D-dad?" Voice thick with the drugs, the edge of panic shifted cautiously to disbelief. "Dad... Sam, s'ok?"

"He's fine, he's right here." John told him. "Now stay still."

It was most definitely time to get that gun of his. With a deep shuddering breath, he clutched his chest as he stumbled up onto his knees.

"Damn it Dean, stay still..." John murmured. "...Nothing feels broke."

"Dun-dun feel so good..."

"Yer fine. It's okay." There was a deep intake of breath, relief mixed with rage. "Sammy get offa him for a second."

The sound of the tape that was wrapped in every direction around the kids body was being ripped off. The boy crying out when blood started quickly returning to his long numb limbs. The desk drawer slid open easily revealing the weapon that lay alone inside. He didn't care for the thought of shooting children but they had really not left him any more choice. The neat solution he had provided had been rejected. Wrapping his hand around the piece, he rolled back to face the man he had brought here. There was only one thing left to do.

The dim room lit up in gunfire.

He blinked down at the spreading circle of his own blood on his white shirt.

The discharge of the weapon startled him more than the impact the bullet had when it struck his left shoulder. He fell back when a second shattered into his right causing him to release his gun and send it skidding and clattering across the floor. He slid off the edge of the desk and slumped to the ground.

A shadow fell over him as he tried will his unresponsive body to get to his feet.

"So what sounds good?" John asked.

"I-I think I'll require a doctor--"

"The woods?" The man over him pondered. "Some dry wall or uh, what was that other one... oh yeah buried out in a box?"

John crouched down low over him and patted the side of his face with the muzzle of the hot spent gun. Looking up back into those dark eyes and even darker slight of the smile he felt a flood of nausea at the knowledge of his end there. Shutting his eyes, he felt the sizzling touch of the pistol graze his temple and the hollow of his throat.

John's lips were right at his ear with a whisper.

"Like you, I'm a very fair man."

He supposed now was about the time he discovered just how fair life could really be.

 

the end or??? nawt.


	4. Payment Plan - Epilogue I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pastor Jim and Blue Earth.

It was like this every time the boys were left in his charge.

Truth be told he enjoyed their company. Mostly because not many children would look forward to staying in with a boring old man like him. Let alone in a small town like this one. Throughout the years he came to take a great deal of joy in seeing those boys scrambling out of the car before John could even park. Dean had in the last several years stopped with the welcome hug that Sam still delivered around the waist, but he didn't shirk away from a good hard scrub across his army buzzed head.

John always with the firm handshake and that awkward half embrace around the shoulder. Jim knew it embarrassed the ex-marine and appreciated the gesture no matter how stiff it was. As was routine, Jim would always step away into the small kitchen to put on coffee and listen to John tell his boys how to behave while he was gone. He heard their dutiful 'yes sirs' and 'no sirs'. They'd talk alone for a little while before John took off.

John was quietly grateful as they spoke while the boys found the room they always stayed in. He'd sip his coffee and talk shop in that distracted tired voice he had. He'd always offer some cash that Jim always refused. The youngest Winchester child always waited impatiently until Jim had settled them in and fed them some sandwiches before hastily requesting being allowed to go to his library.

It sounded a lot more grand than it was.

Jim lived in the small house just behind his church. A three story structure that creaked and groaned with every wooden planked step and stair. The very top of the place he'd made into his own cramped study with his private collection of books that would not be very fit to be seen within the church walls. Sam liked it up there the most. With the down slanted ceilings and the books stacked and crammed into every shelf, the cluttered desk under the bright window and the rusty old fan that clicked on it that kept the breeze cool even in summer.

Sometimes like today, he'd carry a stack of them down here to sit at the table in the kitchen so he could discuss what he read while he found it.

"So um, how long where you there for?" The ten year old inquired.

"Four years."

"Whoa."

Jim smiled at the massive amount of time four years would seem to a child of his age. Almost half a life time was hard to comprehend as an adult, but as a boy you might as well have told him he had been away behind school walls forever and ever and ever...

"Maybe I'll go one day."

"I'm sure your father would get a kick out of that," Jim kept in his laugh but not his grin. "A Winchester boy in a seminary huh?"

"I could go," Sam defiantly flipped a page of the large book on the table before him. "Then I could read all I want."

"You can do that now."

"It's not the same." Sam sighed and leaned his head into his palm.

With one finger he traced the symbols and letters, but just a centimeter over the old parchment so he wouldn't make contact with the paper. He had always done that even though Jim had never specifically asked him to. It spared the worn paper of the oils and infinitesimal smudges of the hand that would eventually reduce the ancient words to nothing.

Jim didn't bother to tell him that he had truly been educated out in the world and not behind the tomes. His pastoral work and the years he spent outside the hallowed halls of the academic. The missions. The dark paths the church ignored in favor of its perceived innocence. The reality of sin and what forms it came in. Watching Sam reverently turn another yellowed page, he looked forward to the years when their conversations could turn to those things. He found himself eager for the day when they would be two men sitting in this room and not a student and teacher.

Although, Jim wasn't always sure which role was whose sometimes.

"I want to be a seed." Sam covered his smile with a hand, looking at the clergy man to gauge how much trouble the statement might get him in.

But Jim wasn't sure he'd caught on to exactly what Sam thought was so funny. It happened often enough. The child was usually thinking about ten steps ahead and to the right of him.

"Seminarium!" Sam finally started giggling, unable to keep in the joke.

The daring childish form of blasphemy was enough to pull a laugh out of Jim as well. He couldn't really argue with it now could he? The boy was right. The Latin translation of 'Seminary' did indeed mean and translate to seed-bed. The pleasant picture Sam had turned the solemn grounds of the schools of divinity made his smile deepen further.

"Are you hungry?"

Sam nodded absently as he read.

"Should we wait for your brother?"

Sam shrugged.

Jim glanced out the window into his back yard that ran into a stone wall and then the farm field beyond. His garden was growing wildly out of control but he kind of liked the bright green chaotic tangle of vine and weed, flowers and shrubs that kept his domain in relative privacy. While Sam read his days away, Dean had been out walking. He'd vanish out into the fields just about every day just as his brother vanished up the stairs. Jim never asked where he went or what he was up to. He'd just look out the window every now and then and see if he could spot the familiar shape out in the distance when Dean decided it was time to come back.

He had been putting away the small dinner of chicken and rice he and Sam had shared with lemonade on his back porch, when the screen door finally creaked open. Without asking for any dinner himself, Dean nodded to him and made his way up the stairs to their room.

Jim sighed.

 

 

He often woke up in the middle of the night for no good reason.

Diligence. Bad dreams. The nagging piece of some puzzle of his research coming together in the dark as he dozed just beyond sleeps reach. But tonight it was a bathroom door shutting.

Used to having the house to himself, Jim found it comforting to hear footsteps going to and fro in the middle of the night. Soft voices of other human beings within his walls. He didn't often think of himself as a lonely man considering how embroiled and lost he became in his own intense pursuits. A fellow clergy man had once joked they were cut from a cloth not made fit to marry because they had only room in their lives for God and His Work. Jim supposed maybe that was correct. But it was sometimes nice to place three plates on a table and hear Sam talk about just about anything at all.

His room was stuffy. With a sigh he decided to haul himself out of bed to open the hallway landing window. It always sent a cross breeze right into his bedroom. He stood for a moment in the open window and breathed in the pleasant scent of the churned up earth from surrounding farms. About to return to his room and attempt to get some rest before dawn came, he paused.

The flicker of the television was on downstairs.

Tying the belt on his robe he went quietly down the steps to see if maybe one of the boys had left it on. Instead, he saw Dean laying awake on the sagging worn brown velvet sofa. Without speaking he sat down next to him to stare at the fuzzy image of a television sitcom with the volume down much too low for the boy to be actually watching it.

"Sorry," Dean said softly. "I woke you up."

"No," Jim assured him. "When you get to be my age, you wake up at all hours."

"Yer not that old." Dean shifted and readjusted his head on the armrest, his legs half tucked up underneath himself.

Jim's chest hitched in a quiet laugh. "I think in a few years, I'll maybe need no sleep at all."

The crickets and frogs just outside the open windows sang in an ebb and flow with the night air that breathed in and out, billowing the white curtains that a member of the flock had long ago hung in her attempts to domesticate the place.

"It's so quiet here." Dean murmured.

Jim nodded, thinking of the surrounding patches of forests and the wide open green places the young man next to him wandered all day long. Young man. He was just that wasn't he? This childhood was setting like the sliver of moon Jim could see white and bright through the trees just outside. Forced a little faster down behind the horizon than most. The thought made him just a little bit sad.

"Pastor Jim?"

Jim knew when a person was ready.

To believe. To walk. To let go. To die. To give up. To confess.

He knew it like he knew that his heart was beating and how he knew there was a God in his sky. He knew that when a person granted you the privilege of their mind that you did nothing but listen.

"I was wonderin'?"

Jim wasn't prepared for a question. The stitched line above Dean's brow was healing, and the bruises along his jaw were greenish and brown. They were strangely sickly colors to mean a wound was on the mend. Clad only in an under shirt and some shorts, Jim could see the circles and lines of where tape had cut into the flesh of the boy's legs, arms, wrists. Still clear in this dim light so many days later.

Dean sat up and took a deep breath.

"Would it be okay, if um, would be okay if I stayed for a while?" He folded and unfolded his arms across his chest uncertainly. "W-With you?"

Jim studied him carefully in the stutter and flash of the television's light.

"Not for a real long time or anything?" Dean added in a rush, mistaking Jim's silence for hesitancy. "M-Maybe just a week ... or maybe two?"

Without a word, Jim offered his arm out.

To the clergy man's surprise, Dean without pause and without a moment's thought leaned into it, silently squeezing his folded arms tighter against his chest. Jim gently put his other arm around the young man's shoulders, patting him and stroking his back softly when he felt the small tremors Dean was trying to hide finally start. The sudden harsh intake of breath from the lowered head pressed hard into Jim's shoulder, and the older man could feel the tension held in check within the body he held just snap.

Jim held up his robe sleeve so Dean could use it on his eyes and nose. If he couldn't offer anything else, he could at least give what the boy asked for.

Some solace. Some silence.

But mostly, just some time.


	5. Payment Plan - Epilogue II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammys POV. Two more to go...

Sammy liked how the placed smelled.

Usually smells went away after a while once you'd been sitting around in them long enough but he always seemed to be able to smell this house. This room. His bed. The sheets. The stitched quilt over them. Even the soft faded blue towel that had been assigned for his use.

Every house he thought smelled like the people inside of it. Or maybe the house made the people inside smell how they did. Or maybe it went back and forth. He supposed he only noticed because he wasn't in a whole lot of houses very often. Motels and well worn apartments always smelled the same. Musty. Windex and bleach. Stale air and the remnants of someone's cigarette smoke. This house smelled like the wood oil that was rubbed into the gleaming oak pews of the church that sat at the bottom of the hill. It was filled with the rich scent of aged vellum and cracked leather bindings. It was coffee always brewing and the clean strong smell of the blocks of soap that Pastor Jim kept on the bathroom sink.

Sam quickly found his place within the house's routine. It was strangely effortless to be absorbed into the quiet steady lifestyle their father's friend lead. It was maybe just that way because Pastor Jim hadn't made a lot of effort to tell him just exactly what to do. Sam found himself suddenly almost completely and utterly responsible for how he spent his days. Curious, he spent most of it following his host around. If Sam wasn't doing that then he was entrenched in the well stocked and endless supply of books that were stacked everywhere. Other than a life of what appeared to be of quiet study, the clergy man of course had his other duties to attend to.

Sam followed him along on those as well.

The Pastor held a service every night no matter how many people attended. Sam knew that he was never expected to come but he did anyway. He liked the calm way everyone looked and felt there. And he'd always had liked listening to just about anyone read anything out loud.

After the evening services they'd have dinner. Sometimes the Pastor would cook but Sam noticed that people seemed to leave food for him all of the time. There was always some kind faced woman arriving with a foil covered casserole or appearing to pick up a pot or glass dish that had been left last week. He liked the ritual of sitting around the table and saying a small prayer of thanks. The Pastor would still smell a little like used up warm wax and the linger of incense. The red wine soaked cork from the bottle that was opened while they ate in the evenings always stained the table cloth. There was the heavy aroma of it as it was poured in an amount enough for three small sips into Sam's cup.

He had liked that too. He liked how Pastor Jim didn't make a big deal out of it or anything. He just poured it just like he'd pour his own. But the novelty of being treated like some kind of equal still didn't make it taste any better.

At first, Sam had drank it only to prove he could without making a face. The burning taste on his tongue was nothing like when his father begrudgingly let him have a gulp or two from his beer bottles. It was dark and like drinking sweet smoke. He had never really believed that wine could be transformed into the blood of another man no matter what you did to it. But after almost a week of sitting at the table as Pastor Jim idly rolled his wine glass's stem between two fingers while he softly recited from one of his tomes, Sam felt himself start to think that maybe it could be true.

But despite all the peaceful evenings and quiet early mornings, Sam couldn't quite totally settle down into a state of complete ease. He knew why their father had brought them here.

He was reminded every time he looked at his brother's bruised face.

 

 

 

The slosh and splatter of rain drummed rhythmically against the side of the house.

Sam kicked his feet under his blankets and settled back into his bed, pushing aside the book that he had had in his lap. He had been sitting up studying but the storm outside had flickered the dim lamp at his bedside until it had finally gone out completely with one strong crack of lightening. Laying in the dark, he listened to the wind outside. The house wasn't that much different with the power out than with it on.

It wasn't a home that had loud TVs on all day or even a radio. Pastor Jim didn't keep a lot of lights on in the first place, leaving most of the house dark as soon as the sun started going down. The Pastor was probably so used to living alone that he didn't bother to light his way with a series of electric bulbs to go from one floor or one room to another. Sam heard footsteps travel up the bare wood creak of the stairs.

The clergy man appeared in the doorway, still in his black trousers, shirt and white collar. He was lit by three candles dripping in a brass holder. Sam had smiled when he saw him. Still dressed from his service and standing in the old house's wooden door frame like that, he looked like some of the pictures in the old fairy tale books. But instead of a story there was a real life saint appearing in the flame's warm light.

His voice was gentle as he asked if Sam and his brother were okay.

The clouds boomed and roiled unseen above them, the rumbling shuddering the frame of the house and the wind gusting to rattle the panes of glass in the windows. Dad would have never asked them if they were okay just because of some old thunder storm. Sam wasn't quite sure why Pastor Jim was asking now. It was just some lights off and a whole lot of noise.

Sam held up his heavy flashlight that he kept in his backpack. Dad always said to keep one handy and with batteries to spare. His was metal too so if you wanted to throw it at something or break a window you could use it for that as well. And, if you wanted to be really sneaky you just twisted the top and the light turned dark red making it really hard for other people to see you. Sam clicked it on in red mode and flashed it on the man in the doorway.

Pastor Jim smiled at the formidable device and wished him a good night.

Laying on his back he pointed the flashlight up at the ceiling and clicked it slowly on and off. The white bright circle of light looked a little bit like a cat's eye. When he flipped it to red it looked like some kind of sinister version of the same.

"Dean?" Sam asked.

There was no answer but Sam was pretty sure his brother was awake no matter what kind of weather or ruckus he could usually sleep right through.

"I'm bored." Sam halfheartedly complained.

His brother still said nothing.

His brother had been saying a whole lot of nothing these days.

After Dean's last birthday it seemed like he had somehow run out of half his word supply. Sam had even asked him once why he didn't like to talk anymore. Dean had said that maybe he just liked to talk to older people more now. Not little kids like him.

But Sam listened carefully when Dean spoke to older people and he didn't have a whole lot to say to them either. Even those other guys around the Pastor's church that were his brother's age. They would all talk about stupid stuff like sneaking booze and staying out late at night. But even then, Sam noted that Dean hadn't been pouring out any hidden speeches.

Sam couldn't really blame him. What was so cool about being out all night anyway? They stayed out late all the time. And drank wine now even. One kid had been excited because he might get his driving license. Sam thought it was kind of weird that Dean hadn't told them he'd been driving without one for almost two years already. He clicked the flashlight on and off a few more times, studying the pattern the imperfect plastic lense gave the light as he rotated it above him.

"Dean?"

He looked over at the quiet shape of his brother under the pile of blankets across the room. The other bed was right under the window, and it lit up erratically and silently with white flashes of the storm.

But even if his brother thought Sam was boring just because he'd magically became a teenaged number, he had still talked to him in one way or another. Especially when they were alone or when they were trying to fall asleep. If anything Dean would at least talk to him to tell him to stop talking to him.

But not now.

Not since that night.

His thoughts turned to the marks that had covered the side of his brother's face. They weren't quite gone yet. The sight of them had made Sam's belly twist into knots at just how they had come to be there. He had watched Dean get dressed and undressed all week and saw all the other signs of violence that were all over him. The first time he saw them he had to pull his covers hard and tight over his head until his eyes had stopped burning.

"Were you scared?" Sam heard himself ask.

He had wanted to ask a lot of things for a long time but he wasn't sure he should. He still wasn't sure but now, after so many days, he couldn't help himself any longer.

"I would have been scared." Sam said to himself as he clicked his flashlight back to red again.

He had wanted to ask question after question ever since they had found Dean again in that weird place. Something always stopped him when he saw the look that had settled in his brother's eyes these days. But here, safe in the dark, it was easier now that he couldn't see his brother's face.

"Did you tell him you wanted to go home?" He asked softly.

He heard Dean shift on his squeaky mattress.

"I would have said that." Sam reasoned.

He watched the strange eye of his flash light slide down the wall and rise again like some bleak sunset and sunrise that he could command at whim.

"I- I woulda asked if I could have just gone home--"

"Go to sleep Sammy."

Sam clicked off the flashlight and left it dark.

 

 

 

He wasn't sure why he woke up but he did, quickly and suddenly, already sitting up before he was even aware he'd done so.

Sam looked uncertainly at the window, the rain greatly subsided to a gentle thrum, the dull flicker of lightening illuminating the gray sky in stuttering flashes. Rubbing at his eyes he wondered what had yanked him up out of his hard earned sleep he'd finally drifted off into. He flopped back onto his pillow with a yawn. It'd probably be morning soon. He didn't want to be too sleepy and maybe miss the Sunday Mass. It was the most special of the entire week and he'd really been looking forward to it. If he just shut his eyes he'd be back to sleep soon enough--

There was a strange sound. Opening his eyes again he looked back over towards the window.  
Sam slipped out of bed, the chill of his bare feet on the cold wood floor making him grit his teeth. He was half way across the room when he heard it again.

It was his brother.

He crept closer.

Peering down at him cautiously, Sam saw that Dean was asleep. But his face was troubled, his brow creased, his breathing shallow and too fast. The covers were almost kicked off and his arms and legs were twitching as if he was trapped somewhere else. Somewhere in the dark of some dream that he couldn't surface out of even though he was trying.

The idea of that made Sam sick and afraid. He took hold of a shoulder and shook it hard.

It happened so fast that Sam wasn't even aware he reacted until well after the fact. The fist that swung out at him flew over his head as he ducked, his body moving almost of its own accord out of harm's way.

Almost.

"Ouch." Sam said.

Chest heaving, Dean blinked and focused on his younger brother's startled face. Bewildered, he stared down at the small wrist he had firm in his grip. He immediately released it, causing Sam to stumble backwards.

"S-Sorry..."

"You were makin' weird noises." Sam explained in a small voice.

"I'm sorry Sammy, I--I'm just--" His brother ground the palms of his hands into his eyes before falling back onto the mattress. "Sorry I woke you."

Sam rubbed at his wrist and tried not to chew on his lower lip.

"Wha-What were you reading?" Dean asked.

"Huh?"

"Before the power went out?"

"Oh um, The Missale Romanum."

"What's that? Like a story?"

Pastor Jim had all sorts of books about Latin Mass. Sam had gone through all of them looking for the ones written by hand and in as many languages as the colors of the stained glass that decorated the walls of the church.

"They're prayers." Sam thought they were kind of pretty even though he knew they probably weren't supposed to be. "W-wanna hear one?"

Dean sighed, rolling onto his side towards the window and leaving half of his small bed and blankets free. Tentatively, Sam slipped under the warm blanket and curled into a ball to gather back up his body heat. He started to recite the last thing he had read, his recall unwavering even though he had only read it twice and only a few hours ago.

"St. Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wiles and wickedness of the devil. Restrain him, O God, we humbly beseech Thee; and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into Hell Satan and the other evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the destruction of souls."

His brother said nothing after he finished.

"Wanna hear one about Consecration?" Sam offered.

"Sure."

As he started to repeat the words from his memory, he decided something.

Sam thought that for now, that maybe he'd just have to do enough talking for the both of them.


	6. Payment Plan - Epilogue III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's POV. John's is next and last one.

It was impossible to know how long he'd been hanging within his own mind.

The dim spark on his consciousness was like a lone sputtering light bulb dangling on a frayed cord in the middle of a vast unlit space. It could have been for hours or days. The only reason he didn't think it had been days was because he still seemed to be alive. There were things just outside of his own small pool of senses that proved it. Voices. Sounds. Footsteps. He faded in and out with the slurred reality of his agony and the rush and grotesque blossom of dreams as vivid as the kind that flashed and burned in a fever.

He thought maybe there had been some mercy in giving him whatever had made that mug of water bitter and sour. It was like being split in two. His body was one place and his mind was numbly adrift. And with them unconnected they would both strain so thin until soon there'd be nothing left at all. There were moments of relief when he saw his father's face. Then the crushing knowledge that it was just conjured in his dark, fading away back to the sound of himself struggling to breathe.

He flinched at the chatter of voices, unsure if there were people indeed there sitting all around his body or it was just another product of his tampered state. Their tone shifted and hissed, turning inhuman and strange. A small sharp whisper near his ear told him that he was dying. It had crossed his mind before that he could die but he had never imagined anything so prolonged. How long would it take before his darkness eclipsed him and swallowed him one last final time? Would the colors that exploded over and over behind his eyes just shift into some clear cloudless sky? Would there just be finally maybe just nothing at all?

He heard himself whimper at the thought that maybe he could survive for days just like this. Maybe forever. Voices drifted over and around him. Muffled and indistinct. He heard his father say his name over and over again but he knew that his father couldn't actually be here.

If he was than he would help him.

Sammy was crying.

Why was Sammy crying?

He tried to ask but his mouth wouldn't work right. It came out garbled and strange.

There was a distant echo of gun shots but he couldn't move. His body felt sluggish and on fire, his muscles cramped and burning. Was he still dreaming? The half sleep in the black had been filled with this. Fresh air. The dizzying profound relief that none of this had ever even happened. He was still in bed. He had nodded off in the car. But no. He always saw his salvation fade back into the stifling blank nothing that surrounded him.

This was just another one of his cruel hallucinations of freedom. Hands were cradling his face, checking his eyes and turning his head from side to side. He heard himself moan when the pain roared through him again as he was lifted. He tried to twist and stiffened so he would be dropped but he couldn't. His face was laying against the familiar smell of a leather jacket.

I've got you. I've got you.

"I'm d-disappearing." His voice didn't sound like his own.

It's ok now. It's ok now.

It wasn't until he heard the loud engine turn, his cheek pressed up cold against the smooth back-seat that he thought maybe some part of himself had seeped back through the seams of the living. He leaned over and felt his hands on the car's vibrating floor, an icy sweat breaking out over his forehead and down his back.

The bitter water came up, all the scattered voices and all the colors that had churned behind his eyelids flooding up and out of his mouth. He heard someone say they should pull over.

It was then that he really knew.

It was over.

 

 

 

 

"You tell me."

"Yes, sir."

"I mean it Dean, don't think I won't follow you into that shower myself."

"Yes, sir."

"Do I have to take you to a doctor?"

Dean stared hard at the floor between his feet.

He had come to with one foot still in a sneaker and the other one bare and wrapped up tight in an ace bandage. It throbbed and ached. His head wasn't spinning as badly as it had been but he still felt groggy and detached. His entire body felt used up and beaten. Sore and stiff. He couldn't stop touching the corners of his mouth with his tongue, the stinging chafed skin puffy and swollen. The back of his throat was raw from puking.

All his joints hurt when he moved. His shoulder felt almost like the last time he had dislocated it. A few forced glasses of water left him feeling nauseous and even more empty than he had felt before. It was hunger to the point of sickening stomach cramps that came in waves, almost doubling him over. The chills that followed made him shudder where he sat on the bed's edge.

But nothing was broken.

"No, sir."

"He got your head pretty good."

Dean's fingertips lightly touched the three small stitches that were carefully placed on his brow. He had woken up when they were being tugged into tight knots.

"I fell."

"You fell."

"Yes, sir."

"What about your ankle, you fall on that too?"

"Y-Yes sir."

"What about your face?"

A brief but solid image of open scissors appeared in his mind.

"I don't remember."

Dean listened to his father let out a ragged sigh as the older man sat back into the overstuffed motel chair. He couldn't look up at his Dad and meet his eyes anymore. He couldn't keep answering the same questions over and over again. All he wanted to do was lay down somewhere and just click his brain off like a light switch--

"What else do you not remember?"

"Dad-- I--"

"Damn it Dean, what if I hadn't found you? What if that son of bitch had headed right over state lines before I even knew you were gone?"

Dean felt his fists tremble as he worked them opened and closed.

"Are you listenin' to me?"

He knew he should answer. Or nod. But he stared straight down, his vision going in and out of focus. His stomach lurched again, and there was a hard sharp pain starting behind his eyes that made him clench his teeth.

"I asked, are you listening to me--"

The large hand that suddenly touched Dean's arm made him jerk backwards on the bed with enough force to startle them both.

Before he knew what he was doing, Dean lunged and started to swing out wildly. Angry growling sounds that he knew must have been coming from himself came unchecked as he felt his fists contact with flesh over and over again. His ankle buckled under him and he felt himself start to go down. Almost as fast as it had begun he was on the floor, panting and wheezing, the heavy weight of his father on top of him, holding his right wrist wretched high between his shoulder blades.

"Ok, ok...calm down...calm down..." His Dad was saying breathlessly over and over again. "you're fine, you're ok...just breathe..."

Dean shut his eyes, trying to inhale and exhale normally and not start screaming or sobbing or the horrible combination of both of those things that wanted to erupt from the back of his throat. He tried to struggle free one more time before collapsing limp under the firm hold, his heart thudding and face flushed against the itchy feel of the carpet.

His father's steady litany of mindless reassurances finally lulled him into laying completely still, letting out even shallow breaths with his eyes stinging hot. His wrist was released, the pressure off his injured shoulder making him groan as he was rolled over, his father looking down at him with a dazed startled look that Dean was fairly sure he shared and wore himself.

With his adrenaline ebbing, the various pains that covered him flooded back through his frame. He didn't know what else to do but lay there shaking on the floor and wait for his father to say something.

Dean blinked up at him when he didn't.

His father's hand was oddly gentle on the uninjured side of his face before it slid up roughly into his hair. Kneeling back, the man slowly got to his feet and almost collapsed back into his chair.

"I'm gonna get headed to Wisconsin tomorrow." He murmured, his gaze falling on the curtained window and the parking lot beyond.

I'm headed. Not we.

Dean heard his voice cracking and didn't care.

"Dad, I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"I think- I think you and your brother should stay in Blue Earth for a while."

Dean sat up slowly, rolling his shoulder and wincing.

"You head on to bed." His Dad told him. "We leave early in the morning."

"Yes, sir."

 

 

 

It was easy to lose Sammy.

All he had to do was run as hard and fast as he wanted and his younger brother would have no choice but fall behind until he was out of sight. All that was left was a voice calling out his name that would get further and further away until it wasn't there anymore. There was some cruelty to it that he'd never actually intended but never felt much like explaining when he eventually returned home to a pair of narrowed accusing eyes.

After a few days, Sam stopped trying to follow him anyway.

At night he'd play the game his Dad had taught him a long time ago when he had once complained that he couldn't get to sleep. Just try it the other way around, he had told him. Just lay there and try not to go to sleep. It usually worked like a charm no matter how wound up Dean happened to be. Not these days. As soon as Sammy's lamp went out the dark would feel like some physical thing that would start to choke him. He had to keep the window by his bed cracked no matter how much Sam complained of the cold draft that flowed in through it. He started spending the early morning hours in front of Pastor Jim's old television instead. After being caught at that a few times he started slipping out to take walks down along the nearby creek.

It was comforting to move along in the night like a shadow. It felt like he was the one that everything else didn't know was there. He was what everything else ought to be afraid of. They would hear his near silent passage and wonder just what he might be.

That thought sometimes brought on a small smile.

Some nights he went through the unlocked basement window of the church that sat at the bottom of the Pastor's unpaved driveway. The silent building was like the abandoned plowed farm land that he transversed unnoticed during the daylight hours. Completely empty and his alone.

He would sometimes take a seat in one of the long pews and watch the sunrise slowly soak and ignite the panes of stained glass that had been assembled into their various tales. Dean knew some of them but most he did not. He invented a few for himself instead, like a sailor on the night ocean picking pictures out of the chaos he found in the sky. As the days went by he started sleeping more and more. After a few weeks he woke up one morning at dawn and realized he had stayed in his bed the entire night through. Any ideas that his night time activities had gone unnoticed were removed when that same very morning Pastor Jim had carefully and happily squeezed him on the shoulder as he ate his cornflakes.

He still took his day time walks though. Every now and then he even let Sam tag along.

It wasn't until almost a month had gone by that he finally saw a small scrap of paper waiting for him on the kitchen table. He picked it up, his name written on it in clergy man's neat cursive script. Under it was a phone number with a Michigan area code.

Looked like Dad was headed back their way again.

With a sigh, he thought about the time he had left in terms of miles and the hours it took to span them. He had known ever since he had made this exile his choice that he wasn't going to remain in the mild sanctuary of these walls forever. But it had been something to be standing still for a little while. He looked up over at the telephone that sat on the wall but didn't move towards it.

Crumpling the paper in his fist, he pushed it down into his front jean pocket.

Sometimes standing still was the only way you could catch your breath.


	7. Payment Plan - Epilogue IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John's POV...

John had been expecting to find a body.

If he was lucky, maybe an intact body.

He had spoken and behaved as if he wasn't. He even had kept referring to his son in present tense. But he knew deep down that all he would be holding at the end of the night would be a corpse.

He just nodded when Jim talked about the how and whys of purchasing a human being. He just listened to the scumbag they had found in a bar that John knew the contact used for his forays into his 'business'. There were no questions about what happened to the kids this guy found and where and when they vanished into the ether.

Into some stranger's car. Into some stranger's carefully planned deranged and brutal request.

John knew at least that maybe he had stopped that one step from happening. But time was passing quickly. He knew more than most just exactly what people could accomplish in a mere 24 hours. If they didn't make a move to provide cash then someone else would.

It created a chance that Dean wouldn't be taken very far away just yet. However, there was absolutely no reason why this man wouldn't just have shot his boy in the head and just come to collect his money. The mere possibility that this man hadn't murdered his son by now was so remote that he knew he had to push it full speed and on fire until the story played out. The thought of never ever knowing where Dean's body might be made him start to tremble in a way that he knew promised some real true madness behind it. There was no option. He had to find him.

Why he had let Sammy follow him into that warehouse he wasn't quite sure. Maybe some part of him felt as dead as one half of his children already were. Let Sammy see what the world could do to you. To him. To them both. It can take anything you have and crush it. Snuff it out like it was as fragile as one flicker of flame. Treat what is yours like garbage. Everyone had to feel that agony sooner or later. It seemed a good a time as any for his youngest son to learn the lesson that life remorselessly and ruthlessly had to eventually teach you.

But he hadn't found a body in the dark.

When he felt Dean breathing he felt the stowed hope he hadn't let himself know he had. It flooded and overwhelmed him. He felt the heavy black terrible weight crushing his chest just evaporate and vanish. He started breathing again just like his son was in his arms. The colors of the drab gloomy room were sharp and vibrant.

He was alive. Somehow his boy was alive.

When he saw Dean look with hope up into his eyes and ask for him, he saw how greatly and profoundly he had failed this boy. How, after all of this, could his son still believe that his father was what had saved him.

If it weren't for John, his son would have never had one moment of this pain at all.

 

 

 

Dean had clearly been given something.

John guessed some massive dose of an Antipsychotic. Fluphenazine. Thiothixene. Maybe even Haloperidol. The stuff used on manic mental patients to keep them sedate. Quiet. Immobile. Gone. The motel lamps were dim and yellow, casting their shadows along and up all four walls. He laid down his eldest son on the bed and took off the tableside's dusty lampshade for better light.

For the hundredth time that night he thought about how Dean could have started throwing up while he was still restrained. Maybe a few minutes more delay and he'd have found his boy choked on his own vomit instead of breathing and speaking. Thinking and moving. Seeing and hearing. There weren't many minutes that sat between a life and a death. It was all it was really. A series of those strange miracles and disasters of timing.

With a damp wash cloth he wiped away the blood that had dried on his son's face. Head wounds always looked a lot worse than they usually were. The gash on his boy's head was nothing compared to the bleeding it had caused. He could fix that. The bruising on the side of his face wasn't as easy to look at.

He knew that came from a grown man's fist.

John used his son's confused drugged state to his advantage. Over the years he had noticed on more than one occasion his older son had a slightly stubborn streak in and about admitting the extent of his own injuries. The kid had once walked around for a week with a cracked rib before John had even known about it. Another time John had accidentally walked in on him taping a couple of broken fingers together. There were other times. Other worries. Who knew how many that John still had no idea about? With those foreseeable issues in mind, he pushed up his son's T-shirt to check all over for anything else.

He started to undo his jeans but Dean's hands weakly stopped him. The kid wasn't quite a kid anymore and had started shutting bathroom doors and dressing in privacy. But John wasn't real interested in his growing son's modesty right at the moment.

"No.." Dean slurred in a dull panic. "D-don't..."

John realized that Dean still wasn't quite sure where he was. The sound of fear in his son's voice made him go cold. What exactly had that son of bitch done to his boy that would make him afraid of his own father?

"I w-won't yell." Dean dazedly assured him.

John squeezed the hands that were shaking on his, deciding to wait for the rest of the inspection for when Dean wasn't half out of his mind.

In fact, the boy was going in and out with the drugs in a manner that was even making John dizzy. Every now and then his body jerked violently with a start when his unfocused gaze fell on his father. John wondered what exactly his son was seeing. The man that had tortured him? A dark blurry shape of some other stranger? He tried to keep talking to him in a calm tone of voice but whether or not Dean was listening to him was uncertain.

But Dean did seem to keep looking behind John and staring hard at some point just past and above his shoulder. Unsure of the drugs effects or what it exactly caused, John was grateful it distracted his kid enough not to fight him while he poked and prodded him thoroughly. From what he could see, he found nothing besides what looked like typical binding wounds. Circles of bruised skin at the wrists, arms, ankles. Probably the knees too. Surely painful but nothing that wouldn't fade with some time. With a frown, he found one ankle was also swollen purple. He could fix that too. Before he could help himself he half smiled. But there was no humor in it. It was pure pained pride. These thick bands of darkened flesh meant a prolonged struggle.

Dean had tried like hell to get away.

He felt the muscles in his jaw twitch as he clenched his teeth. Breathing slowly, he worked his shaking hands until they stopped. A good amount of time had passed before he felt like he could move again without punching holes into the drywall until he smashed his hands into bloody pieces. With a deep exhale, John turned his attention back to his son.

To his surprise, he saw that the kid appeared to have become somewhat alert. His eyes seemed to be slowly losing that completely confused and lost cast to them. But the steady gaze was locked not on John, but again at the space just behind him. John watched Dean's bruised mouth tug into a tired soft trace of an unexpected smile.

His boy seemed so focused that John wondered if maybe somehow Sammy or Jim had had come into the room without him somehow knowing. He turned his head to look if he had maybe left the door open--

John froze.

For the briefest moment in the corner of his eye he saw something.

It was a flash of fleeting white. A gentle fall of pale hair. The soft departing subtle shift of air of someone's passage.

Startled, he blinked. There was no one there in the empty motel room with them.

John felt his gut flip.

Getting up swiftly from the bed, he scrubbed at his face and paced the floor for a few minutes. His own edges of exhaustion were finally wearing at him until he was now as thin as a sheet of paper. The full two days of adrenaline pumping and no sleep had really caught up with him. Not only had it caught up with him, it was now savagely taking all of his senses for a joyride. But he had to keep it together for a little while longer. Taking several deep breaths, he refocused on the task at hand.

He looked back at his son who seemed to be now sleeping almost as peacefully as if he'd just dropped off in bed while watching TV. Maybe it was just in John's frayed imagination.

Tugging the dirty T-shirt back down over Dean's chest, he patted the denim clad thigh.

"Let's get you stitched up."

 

 

 

He liked this part of the country that the clergy man claimed as home.

There was something about how the sun shone down through the trees like it was some kind of cosmic greeting card. The sky seemed more blue. The clouds more white. The pines greener and taller. The breeze that flowed through the rolled down windows was sweet as a field of valley flowers and as cool as a mountain high. All of it without some elaborate signature from the All Mighty at the very bottom but a message there nonetheless. Jim had laughed at him when he revealed that once.

The Pastor had gone on to say that if God did indeed leave humanity gifts like a living breathing card, than maybe John was like one too. Maybe everyone was. We were all just a different message or sentiment that was scrawled in our own messy script along our insides. John didn't ask what the clergy man might suppose his message was. Sometimes he didn't think he had it in him to wonder what he'd say it was if he could even write his own--

With a glance up into his rearview, he narrowed his eyes in surprise. The soft metallic thud came again. John settled back into his seat with an appreciative raise of an eyebrow.

He hadn't really expected for the guy to still be alive back there. That trunk was pretty tight and it had gotten fairly warm this week. And all that plastic tarp? He'd used so much to make sure the car didn't reek like road kill in a few days that he had almost not been able to get the trunk lid down. There was another thud. A much louder one. Which was saying something considering it could be heard quite clearly over the rumble of the engine. John was the first to admit that he was a difficult man to impress. But he would also be the first to say that he was a man that admired endurance.

In less than an hour he'd be up into the wilds of the northern nation and swallowed whole by the endless forests. Vanished. Dematerialized. Faded away. He glanced back up in his mirror towards the trunk again.

You needed privacy and isolation to really properly cease to be.

The sun was on his face and the tank was full of gas. For the first time in a week John felt a genuine truly happy smile come to his face.

He really did like this part of the country.


End file.
